


Prismatic

by The_Bookkeeper



Series: Hi Qui Custodiunt Ipsum Custodem [7]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Bookkeeper/pseuds/The_Bookkeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It will all look better in the morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prismatic

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a series, but can stand alone. All you really need to know is that Jack, Rose, and the tenth Doctor are traveling together, post-Runaway Bride and pre-Torchwood.

Jack’s steps were heavy as they returned to the TARDIS. There was none of the banter they usually shared after an adventure, no laughter or bickering or reassurances. They were all exhausted. It had been a long, long day. Rose had been given a crash-course in thirties euphemisms and abducted by horrific pig-men, Jack had been killed twice over, and the Doctor —  
  
God, the Doctor.  
  
Jack had thought — hoped, prayed — that Rose’s presence would be enough to keep the Doctor from throwing his life away at every turn. Apparently, he had been wrong, seeing as he had gasped back to life ( _again_  with the extermination) to the sight of Rose’s pale and uncharacteristically tear-soaked face, only to have her breathlessly explain how the Doctor had gone and _handed himself over_  to the Daleks.  
  
 _“I tried to stop him, but he just wouldn’t listen — the Daleks were firing everywhere and you were dead and Solomon went and tried to reason with them and, well, you can guess how that turned out. And the Doctor stepped out in front of everyone, like he does, except — he was yelling at them to kill him, Jack. I think he meant it, too. I shouted at him and he looked back at me and his **eyes**  — it was like back on the Gamestation.”_  
  
She had cut herself off, then; wiped her eyes and drew in a breath and begun forming a plan like the competent young woman she was, but Jack hadn’t needed her to elaborate any further to know exactly what she was talking about. The Daleks quite literally drove the Doctor mad — chased him right to the edge of his despair and then pushed him over it until he lost sight of hope and love and mercy and his only desire was to  _end it_ , one way or another. Preferably, he would blow the Daleks to smithereens, but if that wasn’t viable, he would just as readily end his own life.  
  
The Daleks were gone, now. Not all destroyed, but all out of reach and no longer an immediate threat. Jack, as he pulled the doors closed behind him, wished that the same could be said for the Doctor’s death wish.   
  
The Time Lord made an attempt at a smile as he began the dematerialization sequence, but it was flat and brittle and disappeared the moment he looked away. Jack shared a glance with Rose, and she nodded once, agreeing to take the lead this time.  
  
“Doctor —” she began, but was cut off as the Doctor gave a knob a particularly vicious twist and the TARDIS jerked violently. “Doctor!” she yelped with alarm and anger as she clung to one of the struts.   
  
The TARDIS settled again, with the subtle shift in ambient sound which meant they were in the Vortex.  
  
“Bed for you two, I think,” said the Doctor, without looking up from the controls which he fiddled with unproductively. “Sleep well.”  
  
It was a blatant dismissal. Rose bristled, while Jack quietly edged around the console to place himself in front of the interior door. Rose and the Doctor both got snappish when they were tired, and this could easily turn into a shouting match — if it did, he wanted to be in a position to keep either of them from storming out until he could calm them both down.   
  
“I’m not going anywhere until you do, also,” said Rose stubbornly, crossing her arms. “You’re just as exhausted as we are.”  
  
“Rose,” the Doctor sighed, with condescending exasperation, the sort that he knew got under her skin. He was actively trying to provoke her, the self-destructive bastard. Jack didn’t know whether to shake him or hug him. “I’m a Time Lord. I —”  
  
“Still need sleep,” Rose interrupted, “and you haven’t been getting any. Don’t think I haven’t noticed!”  
  
The Doctor didn’t respond. Rose made a frustrated sound and seemed ready to continue her tirade, but then she stopped, fell back, really looked at him. Jack didn’t know whether it was the rigid tension in the Doctor’s back, the dark circles under his eyes, the slight tremor in his hands, or something else entirely, but she softened abruptly.  
  
She approached him slowly, carefully, like one would a wounded animal. Gently, she laid a hand on his arm, eyes following his as he looked away from her. She looked nearly as tired as he did, and close to tears.  
  
“Doctor, please.”  
  
Her voice cracked, and the Doctor finally glanced up, his cold mask faltering and falling. He suddenly looked absolutely shattered, and terribly lost.  
  
“Rose,” he said, and it was nearly a sob.   
  
Jack wasn’t sure which of them moved first, but a moment later they were wrapped in each other’s arms, and moments after that Jack had joined their tangled embrace. It was a study in contrast, Rose melting into him on one side, warm and soft and steady even as tears ran down her face, while the Doctor clung to him on the other, cold and boney and trembling, though stubbornly dry-eyed.  
  
Soon enough, the Doctor loosened his hold and pulled back, rubbing his hands over his face in an effort to regain some of his composure.  
  
“I think we could  _all_  use some sleep,” said Jack firmly, and the Doctor nodded reluctantly.  
  
“Think we could, yeah,” he agreed, voice rough.   
  
“Could we —” Rose hesitated as they both turned to look at her, wringing her hands uncertainly, looking young and unsure as she rarely did these days. “Just tonight, I mean, just to sleep —” She seemed to realize she wasn’t making any sense, and cut herself off, swallowing hard before she continued. “I don’t want to be alone right now,” she finally said, in a small voice.  
  
“Me neither,” Jack agreed readily. He’d never pass up a chance to get those two in bed with him, even if it was just for sleeping. It was more than that, though. While he usually appreciated a bit of solitude at the end of the day, there was something horribly  _wrong_  about the thought of them all scattering to their separate rooms tonight. “Doctor?”  
  
The Doctor hesitated, tense, conflicted. As enigmatic as he could be, at the moment his face was an open book. Jack could see every nuance of  _yes-no-stay-run-never-always-lovethem-losethem-want-need —_  
  
“Alright,” the Doctor conceded at last, with resignation and relief in his eyes.  
  
For once, it seemed, he was too exhausted to push anyone away.  
  
~~  
  
It was Jack’s room they ended up in, naturally. Even if he had known where the Doctor’s room was, neither he nor Rose would have ever dared disturb his privacy, and Rose’s room would have just been awkward. Jack’s room, on the other hand, was simple yet comfortable, a place for sleeping rather than living. His few personal mementos were tucked away, and the TARDIS thoughtfully provided a bed large enough for three.  
  
Rose slipped into the bathroom to change. Jack disrobed without shame, and it seemed that the Doctor didn’t even have the energy to blush as he stripped down with the automatic efficiency of someone who wore the same thing every day, though he did manage to position himself in such a way that Jack couldn’t have seen anything interesting even if he had tried. As it was, all he got was a vague impression of too-prominent shoulder blades and quite a lot of very pale skin before the Doctor pulled on his pinstriped pajamas.   
  
Rose reemerged. What followed could have been immensely uncomfortable, but it wasn’t. They were all too tired for embarrassment, and fell into bed with minimal fuss. Jack and Rose automatically formed a protective cocoon around the Doctor, who was asleep in instants. Jack found that he still had the energy to curse himself for not realizing how long it had been since the Time Lord had last slept.  
  
The TARDIS dimmed the lights. Later (if they found the time and the Doctor wasn’t being too evasive), they would talk about today. They would talk about the last Dalek’s whereabouts and the Doctor’s death wish and maybe, if they were very, very lucky, they’d actually get somewhere. But not tonight.  
  
Jack was just drifting off when Rose’s voice cut through his slumber.  
  
“Jack?”  
  
Her voice was drowsy, but there was an edge of real distress to it, and Jack tried to force his mind into some semblance of alertness.   
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Her hand found his where it rested on the Doctor’s hip and gripped tightly.  
  
“Promise me something?”  
  
“Anything,” he answered, without hesitation.  
  
“Promise you’ll take care of him.”   
  
The pleasant haze which had infused Jack’s body and thoughts evaporated. He didn’t need to be telepathic to hear the unspoken  _when I’m gone_  at the end of Rose’s sentence.  
  
“Of course I will,” Jack choked out through his suddenly tight throat.   
  
“Promise?”  
  
“Promise.”  
  
“Mm,” Rose hummed, already half-asleep. “Love you, Jack.”  
  
“Love you,” Jack whispered.   
  
Her hand slipped away from his, and he tightened his grip on the Doctor.  
  
Despite his exhaustion, it was a very long time before he fell asleep.  
  
~~  
  
Jack jerked awake to the distinct feeling that something was Not Right. The room had taken on the shadowy, hushed feel that was common to any dark place at night, the kind that made children fear the space beneath their beds and soldiers recall suddenly-plausible ghost stories. The TARDIS’ hum had changed, her song now low and mournful and eerie in a way it never was during the day. He could barely hear Rose’s breathing, and the Doctor — oh.  
  
That was what was wrong.  
  
He shifted, his heart clenching as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.  
  
The Doctor had curled in on himself in sleep, losing contact with both Jack and Rose. He shivered and twitched in his isolation, letting out a pathetic whimper and shrinking even further. Even now, cradled between two people who loved him more than anything in the Universe, he looked horribly, utterly alone.  
  
Especially now.  
  
Jack chased away the thought and reached out to draw the Doctor closer, careful not to wake Rose, who was still sound asleep. The Time Lord didn’t wake as Jack gently coaxed him out of his fetal position and into a warm embrace, a testament to how exhausted he must have been. Still, even the deep unconsciousness couldn’t keep the Doctor’s pain from spilling into the open, and soon Jack’s shoulder was soaked with cold tears.   
  
Jack had to choke back his own tears as he tightened his grip protectively on his shaking friend. The Doctor felt so frail in his arms, alarmingly thin beneath his pinstriped pajamas, shuddering with the emotion he could never let show in waking hours. Even now, he didn’t scream or sob or speak — the sounds he made were tiny and pitiful and desperately suppressed. Without his bluster, without his shining (false) grin and endearing (empty) babble, he resembled nothing so much as an abandoned child.  
  
“It’s alright, Doc,” Jack murmured softly, running his fingers through his hair. “It’ll be alright.”  
  
In the quiet, the words sounded dead and hollow.  
  
It was just the night that made it seem this way, Jack knew. It was just the darkness that made the Doctor look pale and thin and fragile as a paper doll. It was just the hush that made Rose’s steady breathing sound like the ticking of a clock. Three in the morning was always the same, whether it was an actual time or just an arbitrary number assigned to some part of the sleep cycle in the TARDIS. It always brought guilt and worry and melodrama, irrational panic in the guise of horrible clarity.   
  
In the morning, he’d laugh at himself and his absurdity. In the morning, the Doctor would grin and babble and it would (mostly, sometimes, almost) chase the ghosts from his eyes. In the morning, Rose would smile and tease and once again look young and strong and vital. In the morning, they would spin off into a new adventure and  _run_ , and it would be brilliant and magical and fantastic.  
  
Right now, in the darkness and the hush, with Rose wasting away her precious human life and the Doctor choking on his nightmares and the TARDIS humming a lonely song from a long-dead planet and Jack clinging desperately to what would inevitably slip through his fingers, their little family seemed hopelessly broken, but Jack knew better. In the morning, they would be beautiful.  
  
He just wished he could shake the feeling that it was the light which was blinding. 


End file.
